Ullr

In Norse mythology, Ullr (Old Norse: [ˈulːz̠]) is a god associated with snow, bows, hunting, and potentially the sun. Although literary attestations of Ullr are sparse, evidence including relatively ancient place-name evidence from Scandinavia suggests that he was a major god in pre-historic Sweden. Proto-Germanic *wulþuz ('glory') appears to have been an important concept of which his name is a reflex. The Old Norse theonym Ullr derives from a Proto-Germanic (PGmc) form reconstructed as *Wulþuz ('Glory'). It is a cognate (linguistic sibling from the same origin) of the Gothic noun wulþus ('glory, wealth'). They ultimately derive from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) noun *wul-tus ('sight, gaze, appearance'), itself from the root *wel- ('to see'). The PGmc term *wulþuz is an exact cognate of the Latin vultus, meaning 'facial expression, appearance'; it is further related, in Celtic languages, to the Old Irish filed ('seer, poet'), the Middle Welsh gwelet ('to see'), and the Middle Breton guelet ('sight'), all derived from a Proto-Celtic stem *wel-ēt-. The development from PIE *wul-tus to Gothic wulþus shows a semantic shift from 'sight, appearance' to 'glory, wealth', similarly evidenced in Croatian in the relationship between ugled ('respect') and gledati ('see'). The stem *wulþ- can also be found in some Germanic personal names, including Old English Wuldwine, Old High German Wuldberth, Wuldhart, Wuldrât, and Gothic Wulþuwulfs, but as a substantive meaning 'glory', rather than as the name of the god. The Old English noun wuldor ('glory') stems from a related PGmc term reconstructed as *wuldraz (itself from PIE *wul-trós).